Baby Animals - Which babies are carried in the arms?

We started Day 10 with Babe in Arms which is a postcard provided by Mother Goose Time for the kids to draw a picture of a grown up holding a baby.  Lachlan was really excited to get to drawing and when he was done, I was so impressed.  Since we learned about manatees the day before, he still had them in mind and he created a beautiful drawing of a manatee mama with her baby on her chest.  That's close enough to in her arms, right?

The last three lessons we did while sitting at the table for lunch.  First was Which Baby? We have had a few of these in our MGT curriculum.  They are these super cute treasure chests with clues written on them.  Then 2 keys with pictures on them of what could be inside the chest.  One key was a bunny and one was a beaver.  The first clue was that their name began with a B.  The second clue on the bunny chest was that they liked to eat carrots.  This is where Lachlan figured out the answer to the first one and picked up the bunny key to open the chest. 

Look!  I made it into a picture!  Here we are working on the clues for the Beaver treasure chest.

For Busy Beavers we started by discussing where in the world do baby beavers live?  Lachlan knows a lot about animals from watching Wild Kratts.  So I started asking him questions about where they live and what kind of material they need to build their houses.  When sitting at the table we were facing the world map.  So I pointed out to Lachlan the Canadian flag and American flag I have on the map and told him that beavers live in both countries.  We are the beaver state here in Oregon and I graduated from Oregon State University whose mascot is the Beaver.  So it's very important for him to be familiar with this animal. 

Lastly we build a beaver lodge.  I looked over the lessons for today the day before to make sure we had everything we need.  We always have pretzel sticks.  So here we are, sitting at the table and I get up to get them, gasp, somehow, we managed to be all out.  So we improvised.  I gave them each some peanut butter and Ritz crackers.  Not stick like at all, but oh well.  Lachlan still really enjoyed building, I think it was more of a beaver dam.  The other two dipped their crackers in the peanut butter and ate them all up. 

Did not really get a good shot of him at work or his finished product.  But you can see up in the top of the right hand picture, that's his beaver dam there in the paper tray. 

On this same day, we were surprised when we woke up to 2 new additions to our guinea pig family.  For Lachlan's birthday we purchased 2 "male" guinea pigs.  After owning them for a few weeks, I started to get a little curious about the true sex of one of the guinea pigs that Lachlan named Jesse.  Jesse started getting quite round.  Still I thought we were just over feeding him/her.  As she/he started to get bigger, I started doing my research.  Turns out, Jesse is a female and pregnant.  She is a bit young for her first litter, so I was concerned.  Especially since I am having a baby soon.  I was afraid if something happened to her while she was having her babies it would add some fear to the whole process of Mom having a baby. 

Thank the Lord, I woke up this morning and the babies were here.  It was a bit touch and go with one of them though.  The runt and probably last to be born was having a hard time getting started.  We just gave him time and a quiet room so Mama Jesse the guinea pig could nurse and take care of her babies.  She did and the little one bounced back strong. 

This was the little guy that was having a tough start.  I call him a he because he looks just like his Dad, but we really don't know and won't know for a while if he is a boy or girl.  Lachlan named this one Twigs.  So that's what we will call him for now.

This one has been strong and doing great from the start.  Lachlan named this one Star.  He is good at finding names, isn't he?

Talk about funny timing.  Of course we had to have surprise baby animals in our home the same month as the MGT baby animals theme.  It's actually been a really tough lesson because I have not let the boys hold them yet.  Today they are 3 days old, and doing well.  But for now, only grown ups are allowed to hold them.  It's very hard for Lachlan to understand and makes him sad.  I've had to explain to him, several times, that baby animals are very fragile.  We have to be super careful.